In Bolivia and Peru, coca was integrated into society.

The same was true of opium in Asia.

While hiding out in the caves of Yenan, Mao became a distributor of opium.

But any solution in Afghanistan depends on eliminating its opium.

An increase in production of medical opium would address its lack of availability worldwide.

Hamid Karzai s government remains weak, and the economy continues to be heavily dependent upon opium production. The Taliban and Al Qaeda networks are re emerging as political and military threats.

Hamid Karzai s government remains weak, and the economy continues to be heavily dependent upon opium production.

Taking note of the increasing awareness of the Government of Myanmar of the need to comprehensively address the production of opium in Myanmar,

Farmers will be weaned off opium over the long term only if they have sustainable livelihoods.

From its base in India, the Company had also been engaged in an increasingly profitable opium export trade to China since the 1730s.

Forced eradication risks pushing farmers into the hands of extremists, and thus will not lead to the sustainable reduction of opium fields.

Indeed, the UN estimates that just six countries prescribe 78 of the total legal production of opiates, implying shortages of opium based painkillers in many of the UN s 185 other member states.

This year s record harvest of 6,100 tons of opium will generate more than 3 billion in illicit revenue equivalent to almost half of Afghanistan s GDP.

Up to 60 of the old growth forest in Nangahar, the second largest opium producing province, may have been cut during the war years.

Not that drug use has increased fantastically after all, huge quantities of alcohol, opium and other drugs were consumed back then.

Neighbors that used to be transit states for drugs are now major consumers, owing to similar dramatic increases in opium and heroin addiction. Intravenous drug use is spreading HIV AIDS in Iran, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union.

Neighbors that used to be transit states for drugs are now major consumers, owing to similar dramatic increases in opium and heroin addiction.

The Taliban are now an increasingly spent force, but lack of water reinforced the logic of opium production across its former strongholds in the south.

Fariba Nawa, an Afghan journalist and author of Opium Nation Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman's Journey through Afghanistan, also shaken by the incident, wrote on her Twitter

China is especially keen on combating drug trafficking, as Badakhshan, the Afghan province bordering on Xinjiang, has become the main transit route for Afghan opium.

Afghanistan is grappling with the world s biggest narcotics problem and donors must commit to a long term drug control strategy. The conference should follow up on a resolution by the European Parliament to consider whether Afghanistan should become one of the countries licensed to produce opium for medical purposes.

The conference should follow up on a resolution by the European Parliament to consider whether Afghanistan should become one of the countries licensed to produce opium for medical purposes.

Moreover, in recent years, factories and laboratories for processing opium into heroin have been sprouting in Afghanistan, producing 420 tons of heroin last year alone.

Without waking him she returned to her room, and after a second dose of opium toward morning she fell into a heavy but troubled sleep, without ever ceasing to be conscious of herself.

According to the US government s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), opium, heroin, and marijuana seizures have decreased since Calderón began his drug war, and drug production in Mexico is on the rise. In 2008, according to the US State Department, potential heroin production reached 18 metric tons, up from 13 metric tons in 2006, as production of opium gum rose to 149 metric tons, from 110 metric tons.

Afghanistan remains the world s fifth poorest country and its biggest opium producer, with a weak central state that is further debilitated by warlordism and the Taliban insurgency.

In traditional Western European markets, health officials should brace for a rise in the number of deaths from drug overdoses, as this year s bumper opium crop will lead to higher purity doses of heroin.

A serious effort to contain them and stamp them out requires an effective campaign in Helmand Province, North and South Waziristan, and the troubled areas between the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the madrasas of Pakistan.

In fact, the resolution calls on the participants at a conference of donors, to take place in London at the end of January, to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries.

Indeed, the UN estimates that just six countries prescribe 78 of the total legal production of opiates, implying shortages of opium based painkillers in many of the UN s 185 other member states.

The 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey, released last November, estimates that the total value of this opium, once turned into heroin and distributed around the world, could reach more than 40 billion.